Sponsored by: The Varsity Fort Worth

Friday, May 27, 2011

TCU got off to a good start on the long road out of the loser's bracket by elimintating BYU last night, 12-5. As we did yesterday, we'll leave the recap to hornedfrogsports.com- but in short, the Frogs committed zero errors (after committing four in their loss to New Mexico) and got seven innings of work out of Andrew Mitchell before Teddy Nowell converted a two-inning save. One of our readers brought up the fact that this game might've been the final competition for BYU as a member of the Mountain West. That might be true, but then again their softball team might still be going or something. Googling "BYU softball" is not very high on my list of priorities, though, so we'll just assume they're gone.

Next up is another elimination game, this time against #2 seed Utah at 5:00pm Fort Worth time this evening. The Utes lost to New Mexico last night, 6-5, meaning that the #6 seed Lobos (just 19-39 overall this year) are now in the catbird seat. The winner of the TCU-Utah game will face UNM at 9:00pm tonight, then again tomorrow at 3:00pm if they're victorious in that one.

The big question for TCU going into a stretch of what could be 27 innings of baseball in just over 24 hours is...will Steven Maxwell pitch? Trying to win a tournament coming out of the loser's bracket is always a challenge to any pitching staff, but it's especially tough on a staff without it's #1 starter. Having Maxwell join Kyle Winkler on the shelf for the weekend would only make the situation harder- putting a heavy burden on Erik Miller, Nick Frey and Kyle Starratt to get the job done while calling on help from the bullpen as little as possible.

Reminder:Get your teams ready for the 2nd Annual Spitblood Scramble on July 23rd at Whitestone Golf Course. Click on the tournament logo on the sidebar to pay your entry fee, or click here. $100 per player, all proceeds go to Purple People Seaters. The girls below may or may not be included. Email your teams to the thefinch@spitbloodtcu.com .